In the Hot Seat: Mattel163 COO Devin Nambiar on Uno, the East-West divide and life after the NetEase deal

In the Hot Seat is our new video series where Pocket Gamer Connects speakers get candid before they take the stage at our worldwide events.First up is Devin Nambiar, chief operating officer at Mattel163, taking questions from PocketGamer.biz editorial director for events, Mariam Ahmad.Born as a joint venture between an iconic American toy giant and Chinese internet powerhouse NetEase, Mattel163 turned decades-old card games into a global business.In February of this year, Mattel moved to acquire NetEase's 50% stake outright, valuing the studio at $318 million and folding it in as its internal game development and publishing arm.Nambiar himself mirrors that blend: a Californian who's spent more than a third of his life in Asia, now running R&D, publishing and portfolio strategy after nearly a decade at EA.We sat down with him ahead of his 'Does the Best Game Win Anymore?' panel at PGC Summit Shanghai on July 29th.** Let's Connect **👉🏻 X - https://x.com/pgbiz👉🏻 LinkedIn Group - https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/pocketgamer-biz/?originalSubdomain=uk 👉🏻 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PGbiz👉🏻 Website - https://www.pocketgamer.biz Check out more world-class speakers sharing their insights and expertise at one of our events. You can find details of our next event here - https://www.pgconnects.com/next-event